Our existing environment is 5.0 with a Tier1 cluster of 3 servers, plus 2 tier 2 clusters. We run Vcenter 5.0 on a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM in the tier 1 cluster with Sql Express. Currently overallocated with resources so I cannot go into maintenance to do the ESX upgrade without impacting production of a 24x7 environment. In our DR site I have a second Tier 1 cluster environment with VCenter licensed up there as well.
I just received 3 new hosts and more storage so I can begin my migration and upgrade. Loading Esx 5.5 onto the new servers and the option is to upgrade 5.0 or rebuild. I'm leaning towards a rebuild under Windows server 2012 with full SQL 2008. (We use SRM, and VCOps and manage the entire environment thru one console, so I plan to run the Windows version of Vcenter since the virtual appliance will not support those yet.)
My question is, is it worth backup/restore of the SQL express DB or would I be better off just rebuilding my database from scratch?